A Flame That Never Dies
by LesAmisDeL'abaisse
Summary: For the wretched of the earth, there is a flame that never dies. Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. (Also in plays/musicals)
1. Just Another Day—Brazil, 2005

**PLEASE READ: Hello everyone. I just wanted you to know that this is not a Les Mis fic, persay, for it is not about any specific characters from Les Miserables, but it is for an Essay contest that I entered. It is a ten part short story inspired by the finale from Les Miserables, which, in my opinion is the most beautiful scene and song that I have ever seen and heard. One of the chapters—the first one I wrote actually—you'll see is very similar to a certain character in Les Mis, and I'm sure you will make the connection. I would love reviews and comments that you have, and would particularly appreciate it if anyone had any constructive criticism to help me become a better writer. I trust you all, but I must ask that you please don't copy or repost my story, for the Essay contest is not yet over, and I don't want this to be disqualified. Thank you all for reading my story.**

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Just Another Day—Brazil, 2005

_This way please, Mister,_ she whispered, encircling the man's sausage fingers in her delicate ones. Tugging him down the stairs, she led him to a desolate room where only a bed bridged the gap between utter emptiness. The bare room only perpetuated the loneliness inside her soul. The air itself tasted of misery, the countless girls before her left their spirits imprinted in the very walls that stifled any dreams they had dared to dream. Suppressing a wracking cough, she pulled him to the bed, sitting herself down upon the unwashed sheets. He followed suit.

It was over in an hour. That was the program he had purchased. He had paid her pimp, Adanne, and left her the moment his buttons were done. Just another day. She slipped her bikini top back over her flat chest and the miniskirt up the toothpicks masquerading as legs, and left the room. Just another day. Her sides heaved as the coughs gripped her body. She battled for breath, a lone swimmer trapped in a rip tide, fighting for life, and yet swept further and further away from the shore with each second until finally succumbing to the implacable waves, sinking below the surface, never to be seen again. Just another day.

Desperate for the only remedy she knew, the girl collected her bag—pink with a picture of a Barbie doll on the front—from the coatroom where she had hastily stowed it, and retreated to the boiling streets of the red light zone where she spent her days. Adanne, she knew, would be in the nearest bar, waiting with her money. So off she sped, eager to collect her sums for the night.

There had been three one-hour programs and one for half an hour. Having dropped out of school four years ago when her mother forced her to pay rent, her math was not good, but she did know enough to add her income. She should have earned one hundred reals for the night, but fifteen of them would go to Adanne. With the prospect of eighty-five BRLs in mind, the girl thought of the hours she could have on high from the crack she would buy with her money. In her excitement, she was once more submerged in a tidal wave of coughs. But there was no lifeguard to save her from the suffocating surf. Just another day.

Sinking to the ground, she allowed the world to wash over her as the disease engulfed her. Her hand, covering her gasping mouth, was slick with blood. Just another day. But this day the coughing did not subside. The blood continued to flow from her mouth, and when that was not enough, poured from every other crevice her body had to offer.

Tuberculosis had claimed her as his own. He fused his greedy fingers to her lungs, washing his plague through her small body. At eleven years old, she met the master of her disease, greeting him as an old friend. As Death converged upon her, gathering the child in his clutches, she saw hands extending towards her, reaching to welcome her into their ranks. Her head spun, her chest ached, her throat burned, her vision blackened, and with barely a ripple, Erica Dias faded from the Earth.

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**While this is a fictitious piece, all of the issues are real, and must be changed. The first way to do that is by spreading awareness. So please, go forth, breathe a little goodness into the world, and always remember that, as Aesop once said, "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." Thank you for reading.  
-Lia **


	2. Shadows You're Seeing That He's Chasing—

Shadows You're Seeing That He's Chasing—Russia, 1916

The train spat acrid black smoke into the air as it prepared to depart. Groaning into action, the locomotive inched forward. A shadow, peering out from behind a pillar, watched as the rear of the train approached before drifting silently to the platform in the back, which he effortlessly climbed. The engine whirred, and the speed picked up. The boy tried the door but found it bolted. Yet it mattered not; he was gliding away from the other _besprizornye_ of Moscow to start a new life wherever the tracks took him.

Settling down, back against the steel, legs squashed against the metal bars, his youthful mind filled with wonder at the prospect of life outside of the smothering city where he, like a wisp of smoke hovering for just a moment after the match is lit, barely existed. He for once, a hazy cloud drifting in the wind, offering no rain to nourish the barren land and instead sweeping in a listless grey to dampen the clear sky, allowed hope to blossom up through the gloomy clouds of misery.

Dusk circled in, clouding everything beneath a mask of veiled darkness. The shadows of night concealed the world under its dark wings, and like clouds in the sky, turned all to unfeeling opacity; light trapped behind the obscuring feathers. Flitting restlessly between sleep and lonely consciousness, the boy imagined his new life. He would leave the shadows of Moscow to step into light, where the glowing sun would push away the haunting demons.

Jolted from his daze by a shout, he looked up to see a man, tall and robust, towering over him. Up he scrambled. Now facing the man, he saw in his face no compassion. Rather a cold and hardened exterior glared down. He knew this look well; it was the look of the wealthy—the ones who had a bed to sleep in each night, a meal each day, and somebody to love them. It was the look that he, a vagrant _besprizornye_, all but expected. It held disgust, scorn, indifference, and sometimes the tiniest most imperceptible bit of pity.

The man, yelling loudly, seized the boy's frail arms, gentility forgotten. He asked no questions, not wanting any answers the child had to give. Too weak to protest, the boy's bleary struggling went virtually unnoticed by his captor. Just like a cloud trapped in a gust, he could neither fight nor resist the overwhelming strength of his opponent. So he was forced against the cold metal bars. So he was lifted above them. So he was thrown over.

He made no noise. No shout escaped his lips as he crashed to ground with a limp thud. Over and over his body rolled, head lolling after striking the metal tracks hard, until it came finally to halt. Shallow breaths scarcely louder than a whisper alone told that the lifeless body had a faint wisp of life remaining still.

As the boy lay bleeding on the tracks, his breaths slowly faded into silence. There he would lie, motionless but for the Cinereous Vulture's picking at his carcass by morning, until the next train would blaze down the tracks, devouring his remaining flesh beyond recognition.

And as the train sped off into the distance, leaving him long behind, the shadows crept around his body, enveloping him. His name was Afanas Alkaev. He was thirteen years old. And he faded away into the eternal darkness of night.


	3. On my own—France, 1832

**I don't know why I'm bothering since you guys clearly don't like this story very much. And now I am really nervous for this stupid writing contest because I thought that this is good but I guess not. Whatever. This is the one that first inspired the whole story.**

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On my own—France, 1832

Galloping through the choked streets, the child slipped through the crowds with such ease, one would think him a fox. He ignored the men whose pockets he hunted, not once slowing to pounce, sneaking a stealthy finger inside for a spare coin. The carts teeming with apples and other such treats, meant only for the affable, he spared not a glance for. Instead he darted and dashed between the eloquently clothed, the sly old dogs, the resolute toilers, the feeble beggars, the desperate mothers, the starving vagrants, and the filthy children he called equals. As the boy hastened on skinny legs, covered only by dirty rags plucked, once sturdy and clean, from a charity box outside the monetary, he did not slow until he reached a decrepit old tavern, about to cave in upon those sheltering within its warmth.

Blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the perpetual dim, he scurried to the backmost table in the building, where two young men sat, pouring over several pamphlets. "G'day M'sieur!" The urchin exclaimed, touching the cap atop his filthy hair as he addressed them. "I got news for ya! The gen'ral's dead! They just announced it down by Rue Delambre. I reckon'd you'd want ta know, so I came 'ere right after I 'eard."

The two men, scarcely themselves past childhood, stood with haste, fervor in their eyes. Mind no longer present in the dank room of drunks, but soaring over the glorious revolution, surely coming, the leader of the two called over his shoulder, "Merci, Athanase!" before disappearing, leaving the ragged boy behind. Sighing, the gamin slipped out the way he came, humming to himself. Now that the adrenaline subsided, Athanase remembered how hungry he was, having eaten only a crust of burnt bread in the past two days. Brushing a loose strand of hair out of his grimy face, he set about stalking a potential provider.

Sadly, no luck befell the starving child, and he was unable to obtain not one sous. With the streets rapidly thinning, the boy concluded that he would have no luck stealing today. He therefore trotted off, hoping that the baker may perhaps throw out some blackened crust to the birds, which he could snatch for his own. Yet he was once more out of luck. Hoping to scare him off, the baker's children threw rocks at him. The baker himself chased the gamin away with a hot poker brandished in his meaty hands.

With nothing else to do, and nowhere else to retreat, Athanase curled up in an alleyway. His eyes alone glinted through the darkness like those of the scrawny cat he so resembled. He had run away from his parent's 'home' four years ago, and since then, he'd been on his own. Sleeping in the streets with other urchins, he knew no rules, and yet he knew no love either.

At ten years old, all he owned was his free spirit. All else was robbed from him by the monarchy. He had nothing. And yet, he did not begrudge or bemoan his fate, instead, he accepted it, trying to make the most of it. No parent lulled him to sleep with soothing words, so he sung aloud himself. No meal was placed before him, so he scrounged the streets and stole when he could. No bed belonged to him, so he claimed a different street as his own each night. No one kissed his cuts away, so he pretended they did not exist. No kind words ever drifted his way, so he claimed he did not want any. No parent loved him, so he swore he had no parents; he said he did not need love. He was on his own.

And he was on his own three days later, when he was shot in the arm, and then again in the stomach. No one remained by the side of the sobbing child as he keeled over and lay, bleeding on the ground. Not one person thought to cradle the boy as he died, grasp his hand at least, in some small show of comfort. His name was Athanase Jondrette. Perched on the cusp of death, he once more sang himself to sleep. On his own.

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**As you can obviously tell, it was inspired by Gavroche. So please review. Or not. Whichever you choose. You probably won't review since it's pretty clear no one likes this story. But let me put it this way; I would love a review that is not rude like several of the others I have gotten but if just truly hate this, then don't bother and I'm sorry I wasted your time.  
-Lia**


	4. Goodbye

**Hello everyone. I'm terribly sorry to inform you, but I won't be completing this story. As a matter of fact, I won't be completing any of my stories ever again. The reason, if you cared to ask, is because today is my last day on Earth. If that vague generalization meant nothing to you, I'll spell it out nice and clearly: I won't be writing anymore fan fiction because I am planning on killing myself in a few hours. I just feel like I owe it to you guys to at least tell you not to expect these stories to be updated again. I'm really sorry but I just can't do this anymore. So I guess this was it. It was a pleasure having you read my stories. I thank you for taking the time to read the crap that I have written and I wish you all the best in life. Please go out and do some good in the world. Just because I can't doesn't mean you can't. So ya. This is it. Goodbye.  
As always, lots of love,  
-Lia**


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